


Family Ties that Bind

by SophiaHawkins



Category: Chicago Fire
Genre: Gen, Suspected abuse
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-01-08
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-12 09:29:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,777
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28633281
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SophiaHawkins/pseuds/SophiaHawkins
Summary: The members of Firehouse 51 rescue a teen girl from a car accident, but suspect her injuries actually originate closer to home. Nothing can prepare them for what comes next.
Kudos: 7





	1. Chapter 1

Family Ties that Bind

"Capp's going to be out of service for the rest of shift," Kelly Severide explained to Chief Boden, "his mask failed on the last call and he inhaled a lot of smoke. We got him to Med and the doctors want to keep him overnight for observation."

"How serious is it?" Boden asked.

"I don't know, sounded more like a precaution than anything, I talked to him earlier and he said he was feeling better, but the doctor won't budge on it," Severide said.

"What went wrong with the mask?" Matt Casey asked.

"Found a crack in it once he got it off, but I don't know how it happened," Kelly said.

"Okay, as a precaution on our own side, it wouldn't be a bad idea to check the rest of the masks and make sure there are no more surprises," Boden said. "If Squad would be called out again tonight, can you manage without him or do we need to bring in a replacement?"

Severide shook his head, "I don't know, but I think as late in the shift as it is, we'll be able to manage," Kelly said.

"Maybe not," Connie said as she came up to them with a puzzled look on her face.

"What is it, Connie?" Wallace asked.

"I'm not sure," his assistant answered. "Somebody just called and said they wanted to report a car accident and requested Truck, Squad and Ambo but said to leave the police out of it."

"They called you directly?" Boden asked.

"Yes, Chief, this isn't coming from dispatch," she said. She handed him the message, "Here's the address."

Boden examined the note, as did the two lieutenants.

"This address mean anything to either one of you?" Boden asked his men.

They both shook their heads. "No."

"Go check it out," Boden told them, "if it looks like a setup, call it in."

"Got it, Chief," Casey said as he went to get the others.

* * *

"I don't get it," Otis said during the drive to the call, "who calls the fire department directly to report an accident instead of 911?"

"Somebody that don't want cops showing up," Herrmann said, "people trust firefighters before they trust cops."

"What do you think, Lieutenant?" Cruz asked.

Casey had Connie's note and was staring at it.

"Lieutenant?" Cruz repeated.

"How'd they know to ask for Rescue Squad?" Casey questioned.

"Huh?" Otis asked.

"Connie wrote down what the caller said. They said, and I quote 'We need Truck, Squad, and an ambo'. Who talks like that? Who even thinks to ask for Squad after an accident? That's left to the dispatchers to sort out."

"Sounds like a firefighter called it in," Herrmann commented.

"Why wouldn't they call 911 then?"

"Would you?" Herrmann asked. "Something happened, you know Connie's gonna put the word out faster than dispatch can."

"But that only makes sense if it's somebody from 51," Casey said.

"Maybe it's one of the guys from 1st or 2nd Watch," Otis suggested.

"Then they would've identified themselves," Casey pointed out.

"Maybe there wasn't time," Cruz thought. "Need all of us for a car accident, you know it's bad."

"That's something else that bothers me," Casey said. "If it's a multi-car pileup, why didn't they specify that?"

"We'll be there soon, then hopefully we can get some answers," Herrmann told him.

The address turned out to be a part of the city that nobody lived in anymore, it was just empty streets and empty lots that had accumulated all kinds of crap from people who weren't there anymore. But as the trucks pulled up, they saw several people standing around in a frenzy, and as everybody got out, they saw two older cars about 100 feet from each other that had both crashed. Judging by the freak show of spectators, all of them looking late teens to early 20s, who were just standing around gawking, it looked like a street race that was a lose/lose for everyone involved.

"What happened?" Casey asked as they got out of the truck.

A boy with spiked hair and a matching dog collar around his neck, who barely looked old enough to drive himself, pointed to the car on the far left that had gone off the road and hit a tree, "AJ wiped out, he might be dead."

A 4'5" girl with dark brown hair who didn't look older than 10 hollered from the other side of the street, where the other car had gone into a ditch and was on two tires and halfway to turning on its side, "Forget about that bastard, he got what he deserved! Get over here!"

"We're gonna get _everybody_ out, just calm down," Casey told them.

"We'll take this one," Severide told him.

Casey went over to the girl, "What's this guy's name?"

"Huh?" she asked as they walked over to the car.

Casey climbed down the embankment of the ditch, minding his footing, assessed the situation and and saw the driver was still strapped in his seat. The window was down so Casey stuck his head in and saw the driver was wearing a white racing suit with a matching helmet.

"What's his name?" Casey asked the girl again.

"Queenie."

Casey shot her a look but quickly dismissed it. As weird as these kids were dressed, why not?

"Queenie, my name's Matt Casey, can you hear me?" he asked as he reached for the visor on the helmet and lifted it.

The face of a teen girl with blonde hair looked back at him though her eyes didn't appear to actually see him.

"Queenie?"

The girl in the driver's seat blinked, groaned and weakly got out, "Don't ever call me that, my name's McQueen."

In spite of the situation, Casey smirked. "Any relation to the actor?"

She weakly snorted, "I wish."

Casey called orders over to Herrmann and Otis, then took his glove off and asked her, "Can you tell me how many fingers I'm holding up?"

"One."

"Can you follow it?"

"I can see your damn finger," she told him.

"I know that, can you follow it?"

She did. "Now what? You want me to squeeze your hand too to see I'm not paralyzed?"

"Oh you're good," Casey said lightly as he stuck his hand in the window. "You done this before?"

"No, I just know how you people do."

"You happen to call this in?" Casey asked.

"Hell no," the blonde girl answered, "Pixie did."

"Who?"

"The midget girl back there," McQueen moved her eyes to the side instead of nodding her head.

Casey saw she had gloves on that matched her suit. "Mind if I take this off?" he asked.

"Whatever."

He did, and noted, "That's a fancy suit you got, you going into professional racing?"

"No, it's my dad's," she answered.

"Oh, he's a racer?"

"He used to be, before he ruined his life and got married and had kids," the girl told him.

"That a direct quote?" Casey inquired.

"Doesn't have to be, I know it," she said.

Casey had her grip his hand. She did, and squeezed harder than he was expecting.

"Very good," he said, "Alright, McQueen, I hope you're not too attached to this car because we're gonna have to take the door off to get you out."

She snorted and told him, "Fine with me, it ain't mine."

Somehow that didn't surprise him.

"Casey," Severide came over and came down the embankment.

"How's the other guy?" Matt asked, not taking his eyes off what he was doing.

"Up and walking but we called in a second ambo anyway."

"I don't need a damn ambo, just get me out of this car," McQueen told him.

"Oh yeah, Severide, this is McQueen," Casey casually said.

"Okay," Severide was willing to go along with it. He crouched down and told the girl, "You're gonna have to get checked out by the paramedics to make sure there's no spinal injury."

"There's nothing wrong with my spine," she insisted.

"Maybe not," Casey told her, "you were smart, you've held perfectly still, you knew what to do, but now you have to let us do our job, and then let the paramedics do their job."

"I guess I don't have much choice, do I?" she asked as she raised her hand and flipped the visor back down.

* * *

Herrmann finished cutting the hinges and Otis and Cruz pulled the door off the car. Casey got the girl's helmet off, got a collar on her neck despite her protests and he and Severide eased her out of the driver's seat and onto a backboard.

"Get me off this damn thing," she tried to writhe around, "I'm fine."

"The paramedics will be the judge of that," Severide said.

"No they won't, I'm refusing medical treatment, that's my right," she insisted.

"Do you have any ID?"

"Yeah, under the suit."

"They'll probably cut that off at the hospital."

"It zips, smartass," she told him.

Kelly pulled off his glove, found the zipper around the waist and separated the jacket from the pants, revealing she had a pair of jean shorts on underneath. Severide fished into her pocket, trying not to move too much, and pulled out a driver's license.

"Queenie McWhorter." Okay, now the alias started to make sense.

Otis came up and looked at the license and told the girl, "Sorry, Miss McWhorter, according to this you're only 17 years old, therefore a minor, and minors can't deny medical treatment."

The girl tried jumping up on the backboard, screaming all sorts of vulgarities at them as she insisted she was 19. Severide took the license from Otis, flashed it to the paramedics and told them, "She's a minor, take her to Med."

"Got it," Brett nodded.

"That's it," Casey told the others, "everybody load up the tools and let's get back to 51."

"Got it, Lieutenant," Herrmann said.

Casey went over to Severide and Otis and took a look at the license and said, "Hey Otis, according to this, that girl _is_ 19."

"Oops, my bad," Brian said with a straight face.

Casey turned to Kelly and asked, "That seem a bit odd to you?"

Severide shrugged, "Last thing anybody wants is cops _or_ parents involved, and a trip to the hospital usually guarantees one of the two. If she _were_ a minor, then it'd be her parents, since she's not, it'll likely be the police."

Their conversation was broken up by Otis' sudden exclamation, "HEY, WHAT DO YOU THINK YOU'RE DOING?"

Both lieutenants turned around to see what was going on. Most of the kids had scattered when the second ambulance was called in out of fear the cops would be next, but apparently one of them had stayed behind. The short girl Casey had spoken to earlier had wandered over to the car and pulled something out of the passenger side window and tried to make off with it, then Otis caught her as she climbed up from the ditch. A brief struggle ensued, the girl screamed and kicked and finally broke loose, but Otis kept the bag she'd taken.

"What's that?" Severide asked.

"Looks like a gym bag," Otis said as he took it over to them, "must belong to that girl they just took out."

"Great, put her license in it, we'll run it down to Med," Casey said.

"I think we'll swing by too, I want to see how Capp's doing," Severide told him.

"Uh, guys," Otis said hesitantly, "something's a little weird here."

"What?" Casey asked.

They turned and saw Otis holding the bag open, and saw several bills sticking out near the top. Upon closer inspection they saw several 100s folded up, but most of it was in 20s and 50s.

"Must be close to $5,000 here," Otis said.

Casey and Severide looked at each other.

"Where the hell'd she get that kind of money?" Casey asked.

* * *

"I'll find out where they took her," Casey told Severide as they entered the hospital, "you go check on Capp."

"Right."

Casey took the gym bag over to the front desk to call for Maggie, but both men heard someone behind them.

"Hey!"

They turned and saw a man coming in behind them. He looked to be in his 50s, clean shaven, short dark hair, and was dressed in a firefighter uniform, but they didn't recognize him, though he _did_ bear some resemblance to half of the fire chiefs they'd had to answer to over the years.

"Do you guys know anything about a teen girl brought in tonight from a car wreck?" he asked.

"Yeah, we answered that call," Casey said. "I'm sorry, you are?"

"Roger McWhorter, I'm at Firehouse 27."

"Queenie's your daughter," Casey's eyes widened.

"That's right. How is she?"

"She's in with the doctors right now but she was doing alright when we got her out of the car," Severide said.

The man sighed like the weight of the world had just been lifted off his shoulders, but followed it up with, "That damn kid, what the hell did she think she was doing? She _knows_ better."

Anything the two lieutenants might've said in response to that was quickly forgotten when they heard a commotion coming from down one of the corridors, and a few seconds later they saw the girl coming their way with a nurse following her. Somewhere between points A and B she'd gotten redressed in her white racing suit and was in the process of getting it zipped again. It was only now that Casey realized her blonde hair was buzzed close to her scalp, almost looked like him a couple years earlier.

"You need to let the doctors finish the exam," the nurse told her.

"I don't need an exam, I'm fine, I'm going home," she said, then came to a dead stop in her tracks when she saw who was in the room. Her eyes even took on a hint of panic. "Dad!"

"Queenie," he said, as if just acknowledging her for the first time.

She froze for a second but quickly recovered and started to say, "I can explain-"

"Save it," her dad told her. "Are you alright?"

She nodded.

"Good, go get in the car and wait for me," he told her.

She nodded again and headed for the exit.

"Don't forget your bag," Casey told her, "you left it in the car."

She took it without a word, scarcely even any recognition, and walked right past them.

"So I take it she still lives with you?" Severide asked.

"What's it to you?" Roger asked defensively.

"Nothing, just asking."

"Yes she still lives at home," Roger said, "you got a problem with that?"

"No," Casey replied. "I guess your wife was shocked when the hospital called."

"My wife ain't around these days," he told them.

"Oh, I'm very sorry."

"Yeah well...is what it is, right? Look, thanks for pulling her out of the wreck tonight, I gotta go."

The two lieutenants stood alongside each other and watched as McWhorter left, Severide murmured to Casey, "That was weird."

"Thank God, I thought I was the only one who noticed," Casey replied.

They heard the sound of somebody running down the corridor and saw Natalie heading their way.

"Is she gone?" she asked as she tried to catch her breath.

"Who?" Kelly asked.

"That blonde girl with the buzz cut."

"Yeah, she just left with her dad," Casey answered.

Natalie sucked in a deep breath and let it back out with a loud, "Dammit! Security got held up in a domestic episode in a private room, we tried reaching the front desk to get them to stop her from leaving, but there was no answer."

"What's wrong?" Kelly asked.

"Will," Natalie huffed and puffed a few times to catch her breath and explained, "Will was trying to examine her and she got hostile. I wasn't seeing anybody at the moment so I offered to help, thought she'd respond better to a woman. We got her on the table, thought she fell asleep. We stepped outside to discuss the matter, and she took off."

"Is she okay?" Casey asked.

"We weren't able to do any tests, we just got her clothes off, she has a lot of bruising that Will was concerned about and frankly, so am I."

"The car went into a ditch, how badly was she banged up?" Casey asked.

Natalie shook her head. "The bruises weren't caused by a car accident. Somebody hit her, a _lot_ , several times, some of them were old, others are fresh."

"What?" Kelly asked.

"She has bruising on her arms, her thighs, her back, her stomach, some of them are clear hand prints from being beaten, or violently grabbed. She also has gouge marks up and down her body. I've seen enough of it on little kids to know what it looks like, somebody is abusing her."

Severide and Casey turned and looked at each other, but neither could say anything.


	2. Chapter 2

When they returned to 51, the two lieutenants took a minute for a cigar break on the apparatus floor. Severide tried making conversation but saw Casey's eyes just stared straight ahead as he smoked, and didn't seem to be following anything he said.

"So I think next shift we should run some more drills, Truck's getting kind of sloppy," Kelly said, trying to get a rise out of him.

"Okay," Casey said distantly.

Severide decided to try it again, "You know, if you don't start getting your act in gear, you're gonna kill your men on the next fire we respond to."

"Mm-hmm," Casey's eyes still looked a million miles away.

Severide paced behind Matt with his cigar in his hand as he tried to think of something else that would grab Casey's attention. He brainstormed, raised his eyebrows as something came to him, and casually added, "And then, you know, I thought I'd take off all my clothes and dance around naked out here on the apparatus floor."

"Sure."

Kelly's eyes widened, and stepped around Casey to look him in the eyes.

"Casey, _hello_ , are you in there?"

Casey blinked. "Sorry, just thinking about that last call."

"What about it?" Severide asked.

"You think McWhorter is beating his daughter?" Casey asked.

Severide looked at him and took a minute before answering, "No, I don't."

"Somebody is."

"Yeah, but that doesn't mean it's him."

"You didn't hear her. She said 'before he ruined his life by having a family'. The mom's not there anymore, sounds like she hasn't been for a while, so it's just the two of them, maybe he resents her for it."

"She's old enough he could've kicked her out if that's the case," Kelly said.

"Believe me, abusers prefer to keep their victims close enough to torture at a moment's notice," Matt told him.

"What're you guys talking about?" Herrmann asked as he came around the rescue engine and joined them on the floor.

* * *

"So somebody's beating the stuffing out of this kid?" Herrmann asked.

"Sounds that way," Kelly said as he collapsed in his chair at the Squad table.

"Off topic, but who the hell names their daughter Queenie?" Otis asked, "That's just asking for her to get her ass kicked all through school."

"Hence the alias," Mouch said.

"Who do you think roughed her up?" Cruz asked.

"Only two possibilities that come to mind, either a boyfriend, or her dad," Casey said.

"Who by the way works at 27," Severide added.

"Ah geez, one of our own, that's just great," Herrmann said.

"We don't know that's what it is," Kelly said.

"What if it is?" Casey asked as he sat down beside Kelly at the Squad table.

"You can't sit here," Severide said.

"Severide you know as damn well as I do that something was off with those two," Casey said.

"Okay, something's _off_ , that doesn't mean he's beating her."

"And if he is?" Casey asked. "She's 19, DCFS can't do anything about it, and since she bailed on the exam, the cops won't be brought in on it. And it _would_ explain why she didn't want to go to the hospital."

"Whoa whoa whoa, hold it," Herrmann said, "before we actually accuse a fellow firefighter of committing the worst crime on God's green earth of abusing his own child, we're gonna have to find out what actually happened."

"If it's true," Casey said, "it didn't just come out of nowhere, he would've been doing it for years."

Severide finally broke down and admitted, "And if he was, there wouldn't be any better way to keep access to her than by making her stay at home with him."

"So what would you suggest we do?" Otis asked.

"If we take it up at 27, his crew will bury us," Casey said. "We know how it goes, nobody's going to stand by and let somebody from their House be accused of something like this and there's _not_ retaliation."

"So we confront him at his home," Kelly said. "Otis, you remember the address off her license?"

Brian thought back and nodded.

"Oh good thinking, he only knows the entire layout and has God knows what on hand, what could possibly go wrong?" Casey asked.

"You got a better idea?" Severide asked.

"So who all's going?" Herrmann asked.

The two lieutenants looked at him questioningly, Herrmann pointed out, "You confront this guy, he loses it, he could wipe the floor with both of youse guys. And what if he's not alone? I say be safe, we'll all go, that way we outnumber whoever's there."

Casey and Severide turned to each other and wordlessly considered the option. Casey shrugged in reluctant agreement.

"Capp's getting discharged in the morning," Severide said, "we'll bring him in on it."

"Wouldn't hurt," Herrmann said, "a guy his size would be enough to intimidate most people, just so long as he doesn't open his mouth."

* * *

The next morning after shift they pulled up to the curb outside the two story house where Roger McWhorter lived. There was no car in the driveway, and it was impossible to tell if anyone was inside, but they decided to check it out. Casey, Severide, Otis, Herrmann, Tony and Capp headed up the sidewalk and up to the porch where the carpeting had been long since worn out. Severide knocked on the door and everybody waited to see what happened next.

They heard the sound of footsteps coming towards the door, then heard the sound of a chain being slid out of place, the door opened and they saw Queenie standing on the other side. She was dressed in blue jeans and a long sleeved black T-shirt, concealing any and all marks she might have on her body. She opened the screen door and looked around at the firefighters and asked, "What the hell do you want?"

"Is your dad home?" Severide asked.

"No."

"Where is he?" Casey asked.

"How the hell should I know?" Queenie replied. "Get off my porch. Get the hell off my property!"

"For a firefighter's kid that's not being very hospitable," Herrmann spoke up.

"Hospitable my ass," Queenie said, "get the hell off my porch!" With that she let the screen door swing shut, threw the storm door shut and they heard the chain being latched back on.

"Well that went well," Kelly said dryly.

Capp pushed his way to the front and said, "Somebody's in there with her, get back."

Before anybody had a chance to even think about what he'd said, Capp pulled the glass door open, turned around and kicked the door open, and everybody showed themselves in.

Queenie turned around at the commotion and met the sight before her with a wide eyed expression and demanded to know, "What the _hell_ do you think you're doing?"

"Who's here?" Severide asked as they entered the dining room and looked around.

In the living room there was an old woman, somewhere between her 80s and 90s, with short gray/white hair, dressed in a striped green sweatshirt and black sweatpants, with a distant, unseeing look in her eyes as she sat in a wheelchair at a card table in the middle of the room and looked straight ahead, seemingly at nothing. She made no sign she was aware of any of their presences as they stepped into the room.

"Who's this?" Otis asked as he went over to her.

"You get away from her!" Queenie ran after him and cut him off just before he got to her.

Something in her movement seemed to bring the old woman to life, she turned and scowled at Queenie and yelled at her as she grabbed her by the wrist and dug her sharp nails into the teenager's arm.

"Stop that!" the blonde yelled at the old woman, "Let go!"

Otis pulled her back and out of the old woman's grip just as she raised her other hand to smack Queenie.

Severide watched this in completely disbelief and awe. Queenie looked at him with a glare and asked dryly, "Let me guess, you're gonna call the cops, right?"

* * *

Severide rolled up Queenie's sleeve to reveal several gouge marks, scratches and bruises on her arm.

"Your grandmother does this often?"

"Every day, if she didn't she'd probably keel over and die for lack of something to do," Queenie answered bitterly as she rolled her sleeve back down. "I file her nails down every week so she can't claw so hard, they grow back like weeds."

"What's wrong with her?" Otis asked.

The girl shrugged and said, "She's alive...that pesky fact's been bothering her for most of her life."

"What?"

"It's a long and sordid story and _nobody_ ever wants to bother with the full details, so just get out of here and leave us alone," she told them.

"We're not going anywhere," Casey told her. "Now what's going on?"

"What's it to you?" she asked. "You don't know anything about us, you're not 27 so I don't have to tell you a damn thing because you don't work with my dad."

"Just tell us what's going on and we'll go away," Herrmann said simply.

She looked at him through the corner of her eye like she wasn't sure what to make of what he'd just said.

"I don't want you here," she said, "the whole place is a mess."

"We don't care about that," Severide told her.

"Why do you care at all?" she asked. "Nobody else ever did."

"Well we do, sue us," Herrmann said.

Queenie looked in at her grandmother who was still seated at the table, and told them, "You can't ever tell when she's listening, it'd be easier to explain in the kitchen."

As everybody filed out of the living room, Severide stopped Capp and asked him, "How'd you know there was someone else here?"

"Her belt," he answered.

"What?"

Capp pointed to Queenie and Severide realized her black shirt had largely concealed a black Velcro belt strapped around her ribs.

"My mother used to work in a nursing home," Capp explained. "They wear them so they don't throw their back out lifting patients."

"Huh, good work," Kelly said. He took his men aside and told them, "Just to make sure nothing more is going on here than what meets the eye, you and Tony go upstairs and take a look around."

"For what?" Tony asked.

"Anything out of the ordinary, anything that maybe the cops would be interested in, if not, get back down here, if you see something, get pictures. We'll find out what she's got to say."

"Hey Severide, where'd you go?" Herrmann's voice called out from the kitchen.

"Go," Severide told his men.

He went to join the others in the kitchen, Queenie told them, "You'll have to excuse the mess but..."

"We get it," Herrmann said, "that's what I always tell company, 'excuse the mess but we live here'."

"No," she shot back at him, "Nobody _lives_ here." She pointed towards the living room and said, "that thing sucked all the life blood out of us years ago."

Nobody knew how to respond to that.

"If you're actually going to stand around here and waste my time, then I would appreciate it if you could get something through your heads right now," Queenie told them. She shook her head, "My grandmother doesn't have Alzheimer's, she doesn't have dementia, she's not senile or confused, she is an _evil_ bitch with no regard for anybody but herself, and always has been."

"Well I wasn't gonna say anything," Herrmann said half under his breath, trying to lighten the mood.

"Nobody has to put up with her," Queenie told them. "Anybody who ever comes to see her, the relatives or friends that stop by once a year to spend 20 minutes with her, they just love to swear up and down that she can't be as bad as all that, that she's just confused because she's old...none of them would put up with what I've had to for one day. I've been doing it for 7 years."

All the guys looked around at each other trying to make sense of what she'd just said, and wondering if they'd heard right.

"I'm sorry, 7 years?" Otis asked.

Queenie nodded. "That's when we first took her in. After her husband died she just gave up on everything, wouldn't eat, wouldn't wash, didn't pay her bills, got kicked out of the retirement community we moved her to, had to move her in with us. Dad works two jobs, so I'm the one that's always had to be here with her after Mom went to jail."

Casey cleared his throat. "I'm sorry, we were under the impression she died."

Queenie looked at him and explained, "My mom is doing life in Cook County for killing a man...I suppose it's about the same thing."

Once again the firefighters looked around at each other, trying to make sense of what they'd heard.

"Very sorry, we didn't know," Casey said.

"The first couple years Mom did most of the work, my job was just to make sure she ate and keep her entertained. 'Queenie, you don't have anything you have to do, play cards with her for an hour every single day even though she's too stupid to even know what the rules are'. 'Queenie, you can see your friends later, watch TV with your grandmother for a couple hours'. 'Queenie, talk to her, Queenie, read to her, keep her mind active'. Well let me tell you, in the past 7 years I have learned more about old people and lost causes than anybody my age should ever know, and what I've learned is when somebody has no interest in living, there is _nothing_ you can do to change their mind, all you wind up doing is wasting _your_ life chasing a pipe dream. For all the people in the world who are just sick of living, I think they should all be rounded up and locked in a room until they waste away and rot, and quit wasting everybody else's valuable time catering to them. At that time, she could walk by herself, see, hear, eat, she was still largely independent, she just made sure she rapidly became dependent so my mom had to do everything for her."

"Why would she do that?" Otis asked.

"Because she hates my mom, always has ever since she was born," Queenie answered. "It was no secret, not in the family anyway, anytime anybody else was around, she put on a great act of being such a loving mother...her whole life has been an act. She plays helpless and crippled around us and she plays sweet and nice for everyone else. Always knew how to get her way. When my mom was a kid, she always went into these migraines that she had to go to bed for a week, she'd stay in bed for the better part of a year, and everybody blamed my mom for it, saying if she hadn't been such a horrible child, she wouldn't have _made_ her mother sick, but because she did, it was her job to do all the cooking and cleaning, from 6 years old on."

"Are you serious?" Herrmann asked.

"Do I look like I'm laughing?" she asked. "It never stopped, she just switched one scapegoat for another. When Grandma was in her 50s, her 60s, her husband would call up my mom all the time because she'd stay in bed for 3 weeks at a time, he thought my mom could somehow snap her out of it, never could. Finally he took her to a psychiatrist to find out what was wrong with her...she's one crafty bitch. She never said a word, she knew if she didn't talk, he couldn't diagnose her, and with no diagnosis, no medications, no institutionalization, so she just got sent home to continue being everybody else's problem. She just hates being alive and all she's ever done was try to take everyone else down with her."

"And your mom?" Kelly asked.

"She shot her boss one night at work, said that he'd tried to rape her. We believed her at the time but...towards the end of the trial, who knew anymore? The jury convicted...and there have been plenty of nights I've stayed awake wondering...if she didn't actually do it _just_ so she'd never have to take care of her mother again? Believe me, after five years of tending to her myself, it's not so farfetched to believe."

"And when you say you've been taking care of her since then..." Otis said.

"I said in the beginning she could walk, hear, see, eat, all that stuff...since Mom went to jail it's all been downhill. First she needed a cane to get around...then that didn't work, so we got her a walker, then she could only use it if I pulled it along... _now_ I have to deadlift her from the bed to the toilet to her chair because she won't walk at all."

"Won't or can't?" Casey asked.

The girl shrugged her shoulders, "That's the thing about crying wolf for 80 years, if something actually does happen, it's too late for anyone to believe it. All I know is up till a few months ago, if I went out to run errands, and came home early, she'd be in another room, walking erect, no problems whatsoever, even hauling the furniture around. You saw her, what would you guess she weighs?"

"I don't know...90 pounds?"

"80," Otis guessed.

Queenie gestured to one of the antique wooden chairs at the table. "Pick that up, what's it weigh?"

He did, and estimated, "20 pounds give or take."

"One thing she could never stand was having anything where she didn't want it. I came home one afternoon, her cane is knocked down on the floor and she is hauling two of these across the room. Her hearing started to go when I was 13, so I went with her to the doctor and she got hearing aids. We shell out $3,000 for them, she wouldn't wear them, she took them out, finally she broke one of them and threw the other in the trash. She's worn glasses for 70 years, one day she took them off and threw them across the room, they shattered. A new pair would be $600 but the real issue is there was no way to get her down to the eye doctor and even if there was, everybody says the same thing, she's old so it doesn't really matter. So why bother? It's not like she looks at anything anymore anyway. She had dentures, had them since she was in her 20s, always belittled my mom for not having good teeth, big fat hypocrite had hers all pulled before she even knew what they'd turn out like. Six months ago she took the top set out and broke them. Bottom set, she could still chew, but then we started to worry if she messed around with them and choked on them...last month she took the bottom set out and broke them too...she's 92 years old, no dentist is going to bother making a new set and it wouldn't be worth the money anyway since she'd just break them again. So as though I didn't have enough to deal with already, we had to get a food processor and I have to grind up all her food because she's too stupid to learn how to chew with no teeth. Then she stopped feeding herself, so now I have to do that too...if that woman could find a way that I had to do her breathing for her, she'd do that too, I know it."

"Why didn't you get someone to come in and help with her?" Otis asked.

"Like who?" Queenie sneered. "She had long term care insurance years ago, $50,000 worth, it would've kept her in a home for almost a year, but in the middle of my mom's trial we found out she let it lapse, so she _knew_ we'd be stuck taking care of her. Her finances don't qualify her for any kind of assistance. Her social security check each month barely even keeps her in diapers, we shell out $100 a week on detergent, laundry soda, deodorizers and air fresheners alone because otherwise it smells like somebody died in here, the water bill doubled because we're doing laundry up to five times a day. _We_ went broke from paying all my mom's legal fees, my dad takes extra shifts at the firehouse just to break even for the fact he gets paid 16 hour wages for 24 hour shifts _and_ had to take another job on top of that just to make ends meet. She doesn't qualify for hospice care because the doctor said she's not sick, she's not terminal, old age alone is not enough to need it. Her blood pressure is 135 over 75, her oxygen saturation is 95%, her heart rate is 60 beats per minute, her temperature is 98.2, she is in perfect health for any age but especially her own and is not any time in the near future going to be succumbing to anything even remotely resembling natural or unnatural causes. We have no other family that can help us out and even if we did, nobody would because nobody wants the responsibility, I'm stuck here all day and night taking care of her making sure she doesn't do something stupid and kill herself _and I have no life_!" She pounded the tabletop with her fists and moved around it towards the fridge.

"My life was not supposed to be like this," she said in a defeated tone, "I had friends, plans, I was going to do stuff, my friends all went their ways after graduation and I haven't seen them since, I hardly saw them before either, as soon as school was out I had to rush back here and take care of that thing in there. Everybody else got to go out at night and the weekends and have a life, and I was stuck here babysitting her. My 16th birthday was the day I had to start putting her in diapers, I spent 3 hours cleaning up the bed, her, the floor...Anybody who's _never_ had to do this, will _never_ realize how bad it is, and most people would never do it even if they had to."

Queenie pulled out one of the chairs and collapsed in it.

"Doing this crap seven days a week for years on end definitely changes you, and not for the better. It's definitely helped me decide I'm never getting married, I'm never having kids, I'm never getting involved with anyone that I have to wind up being a caretaker for, I can't do it anymore, I won't...I'd sooner die than do this again, I don't care who it is." She looked up at Casey, then at Severide, and told them, "So now you see, I'm not worried about wiping out in a race, I don't care if I burn to death in a crash, it can't be anywhere as bad as what I've already gone through...and there's certainly something to be said for burning out instead of fading away."

Nobody knew what to say to that. After a moment, Severide finally spoke up and asked, "What _were_ you doing out there?"

"I haven't been out of this house to do anything I wanted for three years," Queenie said. "I got my driver's license, but...Dad always has the car, only time I can use it is to run errands, that's not why I got a license. The nights he's on shift and I know he won't be home until morning, once I get that old bat to bed, I started slipping out of the house, desperate to find something worth living for again. Found a new crew to hang with. It's simple enough, they got guys who go out and get the cars, everybody makes their wages, and everybody tries their luck and hope they win. It's the first time I've felt alive since junior high, and it's better than having a job, thrills and money all in one night and it's more satisfying than selling my body." She met Severide's inquisitive eyes and added, "I'm _guessing_!"

"Speaking of the money, exactly how much do you race for?" Casey asked.

"It all depends on how many chances you want to take. Payoffs are doubled if you're willing to take a passenger, sounds easy enough but you really gotta be willing to let someone else die with you, and for the most part I'm not willing, if I were, I'd be out of this mess already."

"What do you mean?"

Queenie got to her feet, went over to the counter, opened a drawer under it, and took out a brochure and all but threw it at him.

"There's a nursing home that we could put her in, here in the city, nice staff, costs $5,000 per month, _plus_ a $500 entrance fee, _plus_ first and last months' rent to even get her in the door. I've only got half the money I need saved up from the winnings. At the rate I'm going it'll be another three months before I can get enough to have her put away. I've been taking care of her 7 days a week for years, there's no breaks, there's never a day off, if I'm laying on the floor puking with a 104 degree fever, I _still_ have to take care of her. I can't do this anymore, I can't, I can't, I can't. Everything has fallen apart because of that woman," she said as she fell back in the chair. "It takes an hour and a half to get her up in the morning, get her changed, washed, dressed, fed, another hour and a half at night to get her ready for bed, an hour to get her to eat lunch, every day it's laundry and dishes and garbage and diapers and incontinence pads and turning her all the time so she doesn't get sores, she had a pressure ulcer a few weeks back, you want to talk _real_ torture? And watching her like a hawk so she doesn't do something stupid like scratch herself until she tears the flesh wide open, which she's already done a dozen times over the years, each time takes 1-2 months to heal her up. This house is falling apart because there isn't any time to get away from her and do anything else and when there _is_ any time I'm too tired to get anything done." She ran her hands over her short hair and asked all of them, and at the same time none of them. "Do you have _any_ idea what it's like waiting for someone to die, just so you get to live again? And when it's your own family...and you just hope every single day that they'll finally die...have you ever prayed that a family member will die that night just to put _you_ out of your misery? ...I never had any feelings about her one way or the other, she was distant, detached...she came around a few times a year and that was it...to actually go from total indifference to murderous hatred..." She buried her face against the tabletop and concluded, "I am so damn tired I can't care about anything anymore. I just can't."

Casey looked across the room to Severide and they seemed to be of the same mind. As melancholic as that whole episode had just been, Severide made it a lot more awkward as he broke the silence by asking her, "Do you mind if I use your restroom?"

* * *

Kelly went over to the medicine cabinet and opened it up, and was surprised when he saw there were no prescription bottles in it. Toothpaste, toothbrushes, denture tablets, calamine lotion, antibiotic ointment, eyedrops, bandages, but no pill bottles. He checked the cupboard the soap and wash rags were kept in, nothing, the drawers under the sink, nothing. Nothing prescribed to McWhorter, or his mother-in-law, not even any over the counter pills, something was definitely off. He really couldn't imagine a house with this much despair, and nobody was using any substances to get through it, he knew _he_ couldn't if it was him, even the wastebasket was void of any empty bottles. He even took the lid off the toilet tank on the offchance somebody was hiding a bottle of liquor in there, still nothing. Feeling defeated, he flushed the toilet and then headed back to the kitchen where Queenie was emptying the contents of the food processor into a bowl.

"Is your grandmother on any medications?" he asked.

"No," she said with scarcely a look in his direction, "one thing to be said about that old buzzard, she comes from hardy stock. Her own grandfather lived through the Spanish flu that killed his son-in-law, and lived to be 100 with no medication. Nobody on her side of the family ever had to be on pills for anything, I guess there's one thing to be said about being too stubborn to die, you're especially too stubborn to do it by inches."

And yet Severide noticed she had a bottle on the table and was pouring the white powder contents of a tablet into the food.

"What's that?" he asked.

"Anti-virals," Queenie answered, "good genes or not, we can't take a chance on her getting sick with anything. So I take them because I'm around her all day, my dad takes them because he's around hundreds of people a day, and she takes them but just doesn't know it."

Severide picked up the bottle and examined the large white capsules. "Are these prescription?"

"Hell no, they're made from coconuts, you can buy them in any store for $10."

He looked in the bottle and saw it was largely full, he also noticed a second one on the table that still had the seal on it. "You mind if I take a few of these?"

"Knock yourself out, but I warn you, they taste terrible," Queenie said. "Of course if you can actually swallow horse pills, it shouldn't be a problem."

While they talked as Queenie prepared her grandmother's lunch, Casey quickly inspected the contents of the fridge and freezer. For money being tight it seemed pretty well stocked, most of it he noticed, specifically to cater to the grandmother: protein shakes, sports drinks, applesauce, yogurt, baby food, cottage cheese, mashed potatoes, stuff that didn't require any chewing to eat. He also took notice of what was _not_ there, no medications that needed refrigeration, and not even a pack of beer. He closed the fridge door and looked at a photograph hanging on the front, and thinking it might be important later, subtly took out his phone and snapped a picture of it. Then he moved over to the cupboards to see what was there. There were a few pill bottles up on the top shelf, even without reaching them he could tell they were over the counter painkillers and allergy pills, not much to worry about there. On the lower shelves was a stock of canned pasta and soups, most of which he could guess went into the food processor.

"If you don't want this crap thrown at you, I'd advise you to stay out of the way," Queenie told Severide as she picked up a spoon and took the bowl into the living room.

When she was out of earshot, Kelly turned to Casey and asked, "You find anything?"

"Nope, you?"

"No drugs in the bathroom..." Kelly held up the sandwich bag he'd put several of the capsules in.

"What're you gonna do with those, give them to Capp for his cold sores?" Casey asked.

"No, I'm gonna see if Antonio can find out if they actually are what she says they are," Kelly said, "seems a little odd a woman who's never taken any pills in her life suddenly gets this in her food every day."

Casey thought about that and commented, "If _this_ is what the grandma looks liked drugged up..." he groaned and shook his head.

"There's not much more we can do here," Kelly told him. "I say we get the others and get out."

Casey frowned, "I hate to leave her here like this."

"I know, but there's nothing we can do," Severide said.


	3. Chapter 3

As everybody headed towards the front door, Casey turned and told Queenie, "I'll be back later and get the door fixed, your dad won't know by the time he gets home."

"Thanks," she replied, not a hint of a smile anywhere on her face, not that he was expecting one.

"Sorry about this," Kelly said.

"Yeah, whatever, get out," she said.

They did, and once they heard the door slam behind them, everybody grimaced at the sight they'd just walked out of.

"Find anything upstairs?" Kelly asked his men.

"Whole place is a pigsty," Tony answered. "Bathroom looks like it ain't been cleaned for months. Her room, assuming it's her room, is a death trap. Crap piled up halfway to the ceiling, if she actually sleeps there it's all gonna come crashing down on her one night and kill her. Then we'll be back to haul her body out."

"Sounds like she barely even gets upstairs long enough _to_ sleep," Casey replied.

"If she was a minor, DCFS would be tearing that place apart, dragging her ass out of there and raising all hell about the living conditions," Tony added.

"Find any pills?"

"Ibuprofen in the dad's room," Capp answered. "Baby aspirin in hers..." he noted everyone looking at him oddly and theorized, "I guess she figures her heart's gonna give out one day."

"With everything she has going on, it just might," Casey said.

"Well," Otis said slowly as he took in a deep breath, "I think I'm going to go home and call Babba."

"Me too," Cruz said.

Brian turned to him and said, "Joe, I've told you this before, Babba doesn't understand a _word_ of English."

"That never stopped me before," Cruz replied nonchalantly.

"Herrmann, you've been quiet, you got any take on this?" Casey asked.

Christopher turned towards the others, with a look on his face that said he was trying very hard not to lose it.

"Off the record, lieutenant...do I think this kid has actually been able to put up with this crap as long as she has, and _not_ strike back at that vindictive old bat?" He shook his head. "We all saw the bruises, the cuts, the claw marks...as much rage as she's got, I'm sure she's hit her back a few times...can I blame her?" He shook his head again. "The fact that old woman is still alive shows that kid has amazing restraint. Anybody else would'a killed her long ago and said it was an accident."

Casey turned to Severide and told him, "I need to pick up a few things to fix that door, I can get it done a lot quicker with an extra set of hands, you interested?"

Kelly suspected there was something else that Casey wasn't saying, so he went with it. "Sure, just let me know when."

* * *

Queenie came out on the front porch and asked the two lieutenants, "What the hell are you doing now?"

"Repairing the doorjamb so when your dad gets home, he'll never know we were here," Casey answered as he scraped away the broken wood from the frame while Severide removed the dead bolt from the door.

"How long is it going to take?" she asked.

"When's your dad coming home?" Kelly asked.

"Tomorrow morning at the end of shift, I thought you said you were firefighters, if you were you'd know how that works," she sniped.

"You said he works a second job too, what's that?" Casey asked.

"He works at a convenience store, the pay's crap but they don't mind the irregular hours because they go through a dozen people in a week," she said.

"This is going to take a few hours to finish, but it'll be ready long before he gets back," Casey told her.

"And let me guess, I'm supposed to apologize for earlier just because you're fixing the door that _you_ broke?" she asked nonchalantly.

"Not me," Casey pointed to Severide, "talk to this guy."

"Ha-ha," Kelly dryly remarked.

Through the open door they heard the muffled sound of somebody screaming in the house.

"This door has to stay open the whole time?" Queenie asked.

"Yeah," Casey answered.

She rolled her eyes and let out an exasperated huff and disappeared back inside.

Kelly turned to Casey and commented, "I didn't think anybody talked to you like that and lived."

Matt shook his head, "She's burnt out, she can't take it out on anybody here, so..."

"Still..."

"Shh," Casey remarked as he heard footsteps approaching.

"If anybody calls the cops because they can hear her yelling..." Queenie said as she came back out.

"We'll vouch for you, don't worry about it," Severide said.

Casey put down the container of wood glue and asked the teen girl, "You mind if I come in and get a drink?"

She said nothing but gestured for him to go in.

"Severide, you get the wood clamps ready to go, I'll be back in a minute," Matt told him.

"Okay."

Casey went in and Queenie followed behind him, and Severide stayed at the door and waited.

Five minutes later he heard Casey coming back, and without a word, the Truck lieutenant rejoined him on the porch.

"Well? What happened?"

Casey said nothing and just raised his right arm. Severide took a step back in shock. Casey's wrist and forearm had large bloody gouges on it and a distinctive handprint wrapped around like a band.

"What the hell did you do, Casey?" Kelly asked.

"Nothing," Casey shook his head. "Queenie went over to her grandmother, and just before she grabbed her, I got in the way...92 years old?" He was visibly shaken as he admitted to his best friend, "I thought she was going to break my wrist. I've seen grown men who can't grab that hard. She is not exaggerating."

"Damn," Severide hissed.

* * *

Casey couldn't sleep that night, and apparently someone else couldn't either. Severide barely knocked before tossing the door open and wandering in in a T-shirt and boxers looking like he was half dead from exhaustion, he couldn't even get his eyes fully open.

"Casey, it's 3 o' clock in the damn morning, don't you _ever_ go to bed?" he asked.

Casey turned and looked at his roommate and asked, "What's got you up?"

"The floorboards every time you pace around," Kelly answered.

"Oh, sorry," Casey said as he sat at the foot of his bed.

"What's got _you_ up?" Kelly asked as he staggered over to the bed and sat down next to him.

"I just can't stop thinking about that girl," Casey told him. "We've seen a _lot_ of people in _horrible_ living conditions...but I've never seen _anything_ like this."

"I agree it sucks, Casey, but there's nothing we can do," Kelly reminded him.

"I can't accept that!" Casey replied as he jumped to his feet. "There has to be _something_."

"Casey, she's over 18, they can't afford to put her grandmother anywhere, she doesn't qualify for any assistance, she's not sick...there's nothing that can be done about it," Severide said.

"You didn't see what I saw!" Casey snapped at him.

Now Severide was wide awake, and looked confused as hell.

"Sorry, I'm sorry," Casey replied as he started pacing around the room again.

Severide looked at his friend and told him sympathetically, "I _know_ why this is hard for you, Casey."

"I doubt it," Matt replied.

"Her mom's in prison for murdering a man, she's left to pick up the pieces, there's nobody else around to help her...I _know_ you know what that feels like. I think you're seeing yourself in this kid, and it's not going to do you any good, Casey."

"Not me," Casey turned around and looked at him. "Did you actually look at her, Severide? She's put up with the abuse for so many years she's burnt out and just about to give up entirely. One of these days she's either going to kill herself in one of those stupid street races or she's going to snap and she is going to _kill_ that woman and then _her_ whole life is going to be over."

Severide still wasn't getting it. "You can't think like that, Casey...hey, you managed to grow up without losing it and killing anyone, that's not you, you're not made that way."

Casey stared ahead at the wall but said to his friend firmly, "Severide, do me a favor."

"What's that?"

"Stop talking to me like my mom," Matt told him. "She said the same thing, that was her, not me...that's exactly my point, I'm not seeing me in that kid, I'm seeing my mom in her. Everybody has a breaking point and I think she's already had a toe over the edge for years. I haven't seen anybody as beaten down and lost as that girl today since...my mom...the day before she killed my dad."

"Oh man," Kelly said, "I'm sorry, Casey, I didn't think about it."

Casey sat back down on the foot of the bed next to Severide. "No teenager should be the sole caretaker of their grandparent for five years...especially anyone as abusive as that woman we saw today."

"I know, I hate it too, but there's still nothing we can do about it," Kelly said.

"There has to be," Casey responded. "There has to be something we're not thinking of."

Casey reached over to the nightstand, grabbed his phone and brought up the picture he took earlier and showed it to Kelly.

"See this? Her dad's birthday, at Firehouse 27...picture's dated six months ago."

Severide looked at the picture and saw Queenie standing alongside her dad and his friends as he took a breath to blow out the candles on his cake. The girl in the picture was pale and had dark rings under her eyes, but she still managed a cheerful smile for the occasion and her blonde hair was thick and went down past her shoulders.

"You tell me what teenage girl just hacks all her hair off?" Casey asked.

Kelly took the phone from him for a better look, and he had to agree. He didn't know much about kids but he knew ever since he was in high school, every woman he ever dated was as territorial about their hair as all guys were about their cars.

Casey pointed to the picture and said, "I think this kid is so lost in a depression she doesn't even know which way is up anymore."

"It's still a family matter, Casey, there's nothing we can do," Severide told him.

Casey thought about that for a minute and said, "Then let's bring the rest of the family in on it. How long do you think it'll take to find out which convenience store McWhorter works at?"

* * *

Roger McWhorter slammed the cash register drawer shut. "You two got a lot of nerve."

"The doctors had suspicions, we didn't want to bring the police in on it," Severide told him, "but we had to know what was going on."

"It wasn't any of your business, you pull them out of the wreck, hand them over to EMTs, EMTs drop them off at the hospital, and that's the end of it, you know that," Roger said.

"Mr. McWhorter," Casey said, "your daughter needs help."

"My daughter needs to keep her mouth shut and toughen up," Roger replied. "Life ain't been easy for any of us, everybody's got a job to do, hers is to take care of her grandmother."

"Have you even seen the bruises?" Severide asked, "have you seen where your mother-in-law ripped her nails into your daughter's flesh?"

"She scratches her, Queenie exaggerates."

Casey rolled up his sleeve. "Does this look like exaggeration, Mr. McWhorter? Your mother-in-law did that to me when she was trying to grab your daughter. Her age doesn't seem to have done anything to change the fact she is a violent, abusive-"

"You mind your own damn business or I can promise you you're going to have a lot of pissed off firefighters from 27 to deal with," Roger told him.

Casey turned around and walked off.

"You think this is the life I wanted for any of us?" Roger asked. "My wife's having an affair with her boss and she kills him, leaves me with a 14 year old to raise _and_ her mother to take care of. My accounts are wiped out paying for her defense, I take four extra shifts a month around this job just to keep us from losing the house. I'm getting calls all hours of the day saying Queenie's not at school, she's failing her classes, she's not even paying attention, she gives me these lame excuses about she can't concentrate around taking care of her grandmother. She's giving me lip because she has to miss going out with her friends a few times, she graduates by the skin of her teeth, now she's pissed off because Irene is getting worse and can't do anything for herself anymore. I keep telling her, it's not forever, she just has to tough it out until then."

"She can't," Severide told the man. "She's already at her breaking point."

"They pay me to ring up customers, not chat with you," Roger said, "so either buy something or get the hell out of here."

"Mr. McWhorter-"

" _Out_!"

Anybody else, Severide would've kicked his ass, but he knew the man wasn't worth it, he already had more trouble than he knew what to do with, so he turned and headed for the door.

Casey on the other hand came back to the register and dumped ten different bags of chips, a pack of Slim Jims, two different cases of beer, half a dozen different bottles of sodas and sports drinks, and a dozen boxes filled with various amounts of different candy bars on the counter, without a word he just looked at the man defiantly. Roger returned the glare and nonchalantly set to work ringing up everything.

"Mr. McWhorter, your daughter has spent the last seven years giving up her life to take care of her grandmother, it's a thankless, violent job. Whatever hostilities your mother-in-law had for your wife seem to have transferred over to Queenie and that woman doesn't miss a chance to brutalize her. She won't say it but I know the only reason she hasn't said to hell with everything and run away to start her own life is because she knows she can't leave you to deal with Irene. She already explained it all to us, she collects too much money to qualify for any welfare aid and she doesn't make enough to qualify for anything else leaving you two stuck with her no matter what. Your daughter is going to kill herself trying to get away from this, but she stays because she knows she can't leave you in the lurch to deal with it."

"$213.92," Roger said without missing a beat as he finished sacking up Casey's stuff.

Casey took the money out of his wallet and told the man, "If you'd let us help your daughter we could figure out another option."

"Don't let the door hit your ass on the way out," McWhorter replied as he shoved the bags towards Casey.

* * *

"Points for trying, but you could've saved yourself $200 and just talked to the wall and gotten the same results," Severide said.

"Well at least we'll get the snacks restocked for 51," Casey said as he dumped the bags in the passenger side window of his truck. He turned to Kelly and told him, "Okay, we tried to do this the right way, now we're just going to have to find a solution to this problem ourselves."

"Yeah, but how?" Kelly asked.

"Any way we can think of," Casey said with a huff. He thought about it for a minute and told Severide, "Wait a minute, there _might_ be something we could do to help her out."

"What's that?"

"That kid needs a break," Casey said as he leaned against the door. "We're all in agreement that place is a death trap waiting to happen, right?"

"So?"

"She's so deep in the hole she can't see anyway out, let's at _least_ give her a boost," Casey said. "Tomorrow after shift we go over and see what needs to be done. Somebody will watch the grandma while the rest of us fix up the place, she can either get the hell out or stay and supervise, she tells us where to put everything, we do it. Eight of us could get the place fixed up in a couple hours, and that'd have to be one weight off her shoulders anyway."

Severide thought about it and said, "Okay, I'm in, now we just have to break the news to the others."

* * *

"Car's gone, guess McWhorter must be at work," Otis commented as they got out of their cars, "lucky us."

Mouch looked at the house and turned to the lieutenant, "You really think that she's going to go along with this?"

"Why not? It'll be the first time in years she'll be able to get a couple hours away from that woman, she ought to be thrilled," Casey said as he grabbed his toolbox.

Everybody headed up to the porch, Severide knocked on the door and they waited, but there was no answer. Casey pounded on the door again, still nothing. He tried the door and found it was unlocked. Cautiously, he pushed it open and everybody looked around and slowly stepped in.

"McQueen, you here?" Casey called out.

Everybody made their way in and went through the rooms looking for her. They found Irene sitting at the table in the living room, her eyes staring straight ahead but the old woman made no sign that she noticed the eight people who just walked in.

"Not in here," Severide called from the kitchen.

"Or here," Otis called out from the bathroom.

"Let's check upstairs," Casey said as he headed to the front hall.

Severide was right behind him. They reached the second floor and checked the rooms, and found Queenie in her room passed out on the bed with her face buried in the pillow. She was dressed in blue jeans, a gray T-shirt and white sneakers, so presumably she'd been up earlier in the day.

Casey shook her shoulder and tried to wake her up, "Queenie...Queenie!"

She grumbled something, half rolled over, didn't even open her eyes and slurred out a barely coherent,"Okay, Dad, jus a minute" and was out cold once again.

Severide checked her pulse and felt her forehead, "She's just exhausted."

It was now that the two firefighters actually got a good look at the room. When Tony said it was a pigsty he wasn't kidding. The bedding looked like it hadn't been washed in months, the other side of the bed had clothes piled up that had never been put away, the carpet was filthy, there was trash everywhere, piles of books, DVDs and CDs were stacked all over the floor, several piles dangerously close to toppling over, and on the wall opposite the bed was a floor to ceiling bookcase that was jam packed full of more books, movies, and various other objects, and something about it appeared off. Finally Casey realized what it was.

"The whole case is leaning away from the wall, Tony was right, if this thing tips over in the middle of the night it's going to-"

A loud cracking noise beat him to the punch that sounded like the whole room was going to cave in. Acting on a blind impulse, Casey and Severide lifted Queenie off the bed and got the hell out of the way and watched to see what happened. The bookcase didn't fall over, but everything on the two middle shelves had suddenly dropped down onto the shelf below them.

"What the hell happened?" Severide asked as he readjusted his hold on Queenie and took her from Casey. Through it all she never even moved.

Matt inched over towards the shelf to inspect the damage. "The brackets broke right off...this thing isn't even screwed to the wall."

Severide sucked in a breath and sighed in relief that they got there before anything bad happened.

"What the hell was that noise?" Capp asked as he and Tony came up the stairs.

Severide handed Queenie off to Capp and told him, "Go put her in the other room, this place is one step away from being condemned." He looked around the room and said to the other lieutenant, "Casey, we're _never_ going to get this place organized."

"Maybe not but we could at least make it less of a death trap," Casey replied. "First we gotta clear everything off the floor, then we gotta take everything off the shelves."

"And to get everything back _on_ the shelves?" Kelly asked.

Casey thought about it for a second, then took out his phone and snapped several pictures of the bookcase. "We won't get it 100% accurate but we should be able to at least color code most of it back into place, she can straighten up the rest."

"Hey," Herrmann stepped into the doorway, "who's on bathroom duty?"

"Why?" Casey asked.

"There's only two people using the one up here, right?" he asked with a repulsed look on his face. "That's the most disgusting bathroom I've ever seen, not counting the time Lee Henry got that stomach virus at school and brought it home to the whole family."

"Figure it out, Herrmann," Casey replied.

"I think I'd rather switch places with him," Severide said as he looked around at the piles of miscellaneous stuff piled nearly up to his armpits.

* * *

"There's gotta be 3,000 books on this case," Kelly noted as they took them all down, "what the hell can she possibly be doing with them?"

Casey pulled half a row off in one swift movement and kept them balanced as he looked for a spot to lay them down. "She said she hasn't been able to get out of the house, probably figured she could at least escape from everything this way." He blew a cloud of dust off the tops of them and added, "Looks like she hasn't even been able to do _that_ for a while."

Severide reached for the next shelf and noted, "These must be important, they're all wrapped in plastic."

Casey took them from him and set them on the desk, noticing after the fact that they were all part of a series, he craned his neck to make out the title on the spine.

"Wizard of Oz...got to be a dozen here, I didn't know it even was a series."

"You know we're never getting out of here at this rate, don't you?" Severide asked as he handed Casey another armful.

"Think positive, Severide," Casey replied.

"Okay, I'm _positive_ we're never getting out of here at this rate."

"That's more like it," Casey sarcastically remarked.

Down on the first floor they heard a loud noise that seemed familiar but they couldn't place it, but it was definitely something motorized.

"What the hell are they doing down there?" Kelly asked.

"I don't think we want to know," Casey shook his head.

Matt turned to look at everything he'd already stacked on the desk to figure out how much more they could pile on, and something caught his eye.

"Check this out, DVDs still in the wrappers...plenty of dust on them too, looks like this kid hasn't had time for _anything_ for months." He picked up the pile and glanced over them. "Weird selection...3 Stooges...East Side Kids, 'Stunt Squad', 'Pagemaster', 'Comedy of Terrors', 'Coma', 'Ninja Turtles 3', I've never heard of half of these," Casey said as he dropped them back on the desk.

"Ask Otis, he probably has," Severide responded.

Casey watched as Severide stepped on a footstool and took down the last row of books, now the case was completely bare.

"By the time we're finished here, a tornado won't be able to take this thing out of the wall," Casey said as he got his drill ready.

"This place looks like one already went through it," Kelly replied.

* * *

"Alright," Herrmann said with an exhausted huff as he reentered the bedroom, "that bathroom is as good as it's ever gonna get, we got the john scrubbed spotless, the black gunk cleaned out of the sink drain, the mildew in the shower sprayed off, and we took enough dust out of that room to coat the whole state of Oklahoma all over again."

"And we just got done putting 5,000 odds and ends back in place on this bookcase," Severide tiredly replied as he stacked the last row on the top shelf and stepped down, and added to Casey, "And if that girl wants to make a federal case out of it, she can bite me."

"Careful what you wish for, it might be hereditary," Otis said as he came up the stairs and entered the room.

"Where've you been?" Kelly asked.

"We've been here for three hours," Otis said, "I figured it might be time to feed the old bat downstairs. And let me tell you, for having no teeth she bit half a dozen plastic spoons and broke them all. Now however, there's another problem we have to deal with."

"Which is?" Herrmann asked.

Otis said nothing and just stared at Christopher knowingly.

"Oh no, uh uh, forget it," Herrmann shook his head.

"Herrmann, you're the only one here who's had kids, you're the only one with any experience changing diapers."

"Yeah, on my kids when they were little babies, this is totally different, I ain't doing it," Herrmann said.

"Herrmann, just do it," Casey told him. "One time won't kill you."

"I wouldn't be too sure about that," Herrmann replied.

"Just do it," Casey repeated.

Herrmann grumbled under his breath but followed Otis out of the room.

"Are we done yet?" Kelly asked as he sat down on the bed, and immediately regretted it. He stood back up and brushed something off his clothes that felt like gravel or salt.

"Check the closet and see if there's an extra set of sheets in there, these have to be washed...or burnt," Casey said as he put his tools away.

"I'm not looking in there," Severide argued.

Casey looked at him. "You scared of finding a tampon, Severide?"

"Hey, I don't recall _you_ volunteering to clean out Jones's locker," Kelly remarked.

Casey snorted and asked, "How did Shay put up with you?"

"I never had to look at hers either."

"For crying out loud, Severide," Casey rolled his eyes as he opened the closet door. The first thing he saw was the white racing suit Queenie wore the night of the crash. Pushing it aside, there weren't a lot of clothes in the closet, he looked under the ones there were and found a spare set of bed sheets tied up in a grocery bag.

"Drop these downstairs and have somebody run them through the dryer," he told Severide, "they're probably clean but let's just make sure there're no spiders in them."

"Right," Kelly said as he took the sack and headed for the stairs.

Casey took the racing suit off the clothes rod and looked at it. He tried to imagine McWhorter actually wearing this in his younger days. He didn't have to imagine Queenie wearing it, but he wondered how many times she'd actually used it. 3 more months of racing to win enough money to put her grandmother in the nursing home, that's what she'd said. 3 more months of playing with her life, and very possibly, losing somewhere before the end. Casey hated to admit it but he knew there wasn't anything they could do to stop her. Unless...an idea came to him, and he hoped it would work.


	4. Chapter 4

Severide returned to the bedroom and told Casey, "Antonio just called."

"What'd he say?"

"The pills check out. Turns out they _are_ some natural supplement people take for various anti-viral purposes," Kelly said.

"Probably just as well, I doubt there are enough drugs in the whole state to tranquilize that woman downstairs," Casey said.

"No kidding," Severide responded. "So now what?"

Casey finished stripping the dirty sheets off the bed, balled them up and tossed them out the door. "Everything in this room needs to be dusted, or vacuumed, or blown up, take your pick."

Severide went over to the full length mirror on the closet door and noticed the whole thing was coated in a thin layer of dust, it didn't block out the view of a reflection but anything seen in it would be tinted by a sheet of gray. He ran one finger down the glass and watched as the only clear spot in the whole mirror formed.

"Yeesh, I see what you mean."

* * *

Just as Casey and Severide finished working in Queenie's room, they saw her stagger out of her dad's bedroom rubbing a stiff neck, looking half dead and disoriented, even for her hair being buzzed short it was obvious she'd just gotten up because one side was smashed flash against her head and the other side stuck up in little spikes.

"What the hell's going on? What time is it?" she asked, then actually seemed to see them. "What the _hell_ are you doing back here?"

"Why don't you see for yourself?" Casey asked, and he and Severide stepped back.

"What?" she asked. Then she stepped in to her room and looked around.

It was impossible to take in any one thing at a time, the whole room looked different. The carpet had been vacuumed, the bedding had been changed, the bed was actually made, the clothes were sitting on the dresser, the mirror on the closet door had been dusted, the piles of stuff on the floor had been stacked in tighter piles that took up less room and looked less likely to topple over, the bookcase on the wall leaned straight against the wall and everything on it had been pushed back in straighter, even rows that were no longer coated in gray gobs of dust.

"What the hell?" she asked, completely confused.

"Try saying 'thank you', woman," Severide sarcastically replied.

She turned around and looked at them and looked totally lost. "I don't get it," she said. "You...you did this? Why?"

"We help our own, it's what firefighters do," Casey answered simply.

Queenie's head swayed and she took a step to the side and seemed to lose her balance and about hit the floor. The two lieutenants grabbed her and pulled her back to her feet.

"You okay?" Kelly asked.

She shook her head and answered, "Yeah...just...what happened? What time is it?"

"1:30 in the afternoon."

" _What_?" Queenie broke loose from their hold, "oh my God, I can't believe I slept that long, I have to go-"

"Calm down, we got it covered," Casey told her. "We thought we'd give you a hand, make things a _little_ easier for you."

"Why?" she asked.

"Because it's about time somebody did," he said.

She just looked at him like she couldn't make any sense of what he'd just said.

"There's something I want to know," Casey told her. "We have been through every square inch of this house and I happen to know there is _no_ alcohol, _no_ pills, no drugs whatsoever...and given everything you've had to put up with in this house, the only thing I can think to ask is... _why_?"

That she seemed to make some sense of, and she answered, "First of all, those things cost money, which we don't have. To afford them, that would mean giving up something else, which we can't afford, most of the expenses in this house belong to _her_. And I hate that old bitch with every fiber of my being, but I'm not about to starve her."

"Tell me something," Casey added, "I know no matter what we say, you're just going to go out there like an idiot the next chance you get and risk your life in another one of those stupid races that we'll probably get called to when somebody crashes again, which is very likely. When _is_ the next race?"

"Why?" she asked.

"Just answer the question."

"Tomorrow night, why?"

Casey looked at her and asked, "What would it take to keep you out of it?"

"What?"

"I'm serious, what would it take for you to stay out of the race?"

"Nothing's going to keep me out of it," Queenie replied. "This is my one chance at getting the hell out of here and I'm taking it."

Severide stood between the two of them and watched them both, waiting to see what would happen next and who made the first move.

"How much do you still have to get to afford the nursing home?" Casey asked.

"I have $5,000 already, as soon as I get the other $5,000, she's out of here. It'll only buy me a month without her, but 30 whole days without her, not having to look at her, scream at her, smell her, clean her, fight with her, for the first time in _seven_ years...it will be _well_ worth it," Queenie said.

* * *

"The state health inspector could come through that house and not have any complaints now," Otis said as everybody headed to their cars, "everything's dusted, everything's washed, the carpets were steam cleaned _twice_."

"So _that's_ what that noise was we heard," Casey said.

"And that old bat should be good until tonight," Herrmann grumbled, he told the others, "that kid really been changing that thing's diapers for three solid years?" He shook his head, "give that kid the key to the city, pin a medal on her chest."

"What, no little pink poodle on a keychain?" Otis asked.

"So, you think she actually appreciates what we did?" Cruz asked.

"I think she's too exhausted to even realize it," Kelly said, "you should've seen her, four hours asleep and she couldn't stand straight or even remember what we were talking about."

"Just chalk it up to our good deed for the week," Casey said.

"A good deed like that? Try a decade," Mouch replied.

Everybody went their separate ways and drove off, leaving only the two lieutenants. Casey turned to get in his truck and saw Severide leaning smugly against the driver side door.

"Something I can do for you?" Matt asked.

"What's going through that cracked skull of yours?" Kelly asked.

"What do you mean?" Casey asked.

"Why were you asking her about the race?"

Casey shoved Kelly away from the door to open it, "I'm going to reach out to someone to see if I can call in a favor and get her the rest of the money so she won't have to kill herself trying for it."

"Reach out to who?" Kelly asked.

"You don't know them," Casey said.

"Is it Voight?"

"I said you don't know them," Casey replied as he got in his truck.

"Tell Voight I said hi," Severide said as he turned and headed for his car.

"I will," Casey remarked.

* * *

Casey and Voight sat at a table at Molly's and had a couple of beers while Casey recapped everything they'd learned in the last four days.

"Anyone who doesn't see what's going on, they will never believe it," Casey said, "nobody _could_ believe it. It cannot be humanly possible for one old woman to have this much strength and evil in her, but she does." He closed his eyes, shook his head, and told Voight, "We've had to pull a lot of stupid kids out of totaled cars, most of them _do_ survive but it's in a wheelchair for the rest of their lives. I don't want to see that happen to this girl, I don't want to have to pull her body out of a flaming wreck. I also don't want to see her go on trial for murdering her grandmother, the jury would _never_ believe a word she said, there are no corroborating witnesses, her own dad isn't around enough to realize what's going on."

Voight took this all in without a word and seemed to consider it. Then he asked Casey, "How much?"

"She needs $10,000 to cover first and last month's expenses just to get her grandmother in the home," Casey said.

"And that's it?" Voight asked.

Casey shrugged his shoulders. "That's what she's trying for, I don't have any idea what she plans to do at the end of the month, but she's desperate enough she figures it's better than nothing."

Voight nodded somberly and thought about it. Then he told Casey, "Stop by the house later, we'll see what we can arrange."

Casey nodded, "Thanks, Voight. You don't know what this means to me."

"I can guess," Voight said. "I know you guys have an unintentional habit of latching on to certain victims you rescue, for reasons probably none of us ever want to know...I can tell this one's particularly left a mark on you. Maybe the reason's obvious, mom's in jail for committing murder, father who may be an emotionally abusive prick, no other family to come to her aid, who would believe her or maybe even listen to her..."

"You think I see myself in her, that's not it," Casey insisted.

"I told you, the reasons why don't matter to _me_ ," Voight said. "The question is do _you_ know what you're getting yourself into?"

"I'm trying to help her."

"I know...just try and realize whatever is going through your head, the second that woman's in the rest home, you're never gonna see that girl again," Voight told him. "So anything you have to say to her, I would do it now while you still have the chance."

Casey shook his head. "I don't have anything to say."

* * *

Casey beat on the front door and waited for someone to answer. He saw a trace of light from an upstairs window, then heard the distant echo of somebody coming down the stairs. The porch light came on and blinded him, he took a step back and squinted. He heard the chain and bolt being undone on the door, saw it open, and Queenie opened the screen door an inch and asked him, "What do you want?"

"Thought this would be a good time to stop in, I see the car's still not here."

"He goes to the firehouse the night before shift and just crashes in the bunk room, beat the rush," Queenie explained, "then he doesn't have to deal with anything here."

Casey stood on the porch looking at her for a minute before finally asking, "So can I come in?"

"Why?"

Casey looked at her through the glass and observed, "You don't look well."

"Oh that's a shock, right?" she replied sarcastically. "I have a splitting headache thank you very much, funny what a little sleep deprivation does after a few years, eh?"

Casey grabbed the glass door, threw it open and showed himself in.

"What the hell?" Queenie took a step back as he entered the room.

Casey walked past her and into the dining room and flipped on the lights.

"Get the hell out of my house!" the teen girl marched up to him.

The only response was the sound of something dropping on the table. She looked and saw it was a manila envelope.

"What's that?" she asked with a sneer.

"Open it up," Casey told her.

"I'm not touching that thing," she said.

Casey turned his head and glared at her. He grabbed the bottom of the envelope and turned it upside-down, dumping several banded stacks of hundred dollar bills on the table.

Queenie eyed it suspiciously, "What's that?"

"$30,000, that will pay for five months in the retirement home," Casey explained.

She looked at him and looked at the money, finally asking, "Is this some kind of sick joke?"

"It's not a joke," he told her, "it's your way out."

Queenie closed her eyes and shook her head like she was trying to wake up. Then she opened her eyes wider and pointed towards the door. "And now the cops are gonna come through that door, right? Think I stole the money, that it?"

Casey shook his head. "No joke, not a trap. Look, I'm not your father..." He suddenly found he couldn't finish that sentence. He couldn't bring himself to say what was going through his mind. In fact, he didn't think there was any way he could make his point that she'd really understand. He forgot about what he was going to tell her, instead he grabbed her and pulled her into a tight hug. It was only after the fact that he realized the odds were good she'd try and beat the hell out of him for it...but she didn't, which told him everything he needed to know.

"I know what it's like when there's nobody there for you," he told her, "it sucks...I can't imagine going through it _and_ doing what you have. You do what you have to do and you get the hell out while you still have a chance." He pulled back and cupped his hands on the sides of her face to look her in the eyes and added, taking on a hint of a paternal tone, "But don't ever let me catch your ass in another street race, you got me?"

She didn't respond. Her eyes were almost a blank stare. It was obvious she'd been without help or hope for so long, it was almost too much for her to even comprehend. Her legs became wobbly and she about hit the floor, he grabbed her and held her steady as she regained her balance.

"Why?" she asked cluelessly. "Why would you want to do something like that?"

He looked at her and answered, "Because you _have_ a life, you need to _live_ it."

It was a slow process for her to take in what he was actually saying and he could tell it just by watching the expression on her face. Her whole body gave a small jerk and she lost her footing again and fell on the carpet. Casey crouched down beside her and watched as she tried to focus her eyes and finally got out a murmured, "Nothing...makes sense anymore."

"I've definitely been there," he told her as he helped her back up. He pulled one of the chairs out from the table and gave her a slight push to sit down before she collapsed again.

Queenie's face scrunched up in pain as she placed a hand against her forehead and groaned, "My head...my head..."

"I know this is a lot to take in...but things are finally going to get better now," he said. "You go back to bed, figure out what to do tomorrow." He leaned down to look at her and told her, "It's over, Queenie...you wanted your freedom, you got it."

The blonde girl said nothing and just stared at the pile of money on the table in awe. Casey knew even a simple 'thank you' was beyond her comprehension right now, he reached a hand over, placed it on her cheek, turned her face towards him and kissed her over one eye.

"You're free," Casey said. He thought that was the best news he'd ever get to tell someone as long as he lived.

* * *

After that night, Casey never saw Queenie again, nobody from 51 saw her, or had any further dealings with her dad, and life returned to what passed for normal again. Days passed, turned into weeks, every three days they went out on calls, they pulled people from burning buildings, out of crashed cars, off rooftops and out of building collapses. They saw a lot of people die, they saw a lot suffer from the accidents they were in, they saw a few lives come into the world that seemed to balance out the craziness of it all. Off shift they frequented Molly's and did whatever it was they had to do to stay sane enough for the next shift.

Then one day everything changed.

"Holy smokes," Herrmann said as he looked at the morning paper in the common room.

"What?" Casey asked as he looked up from the TV.

Instead of answering, Herrmann took the paper over to Casey and showed him the page he'd been reading, the obituaries.

"Oh my God," Casey said.

"What is it?" Severide asked.

"Irene Helton, 92, passed away Friday, May 17th, at Green Lawn Retirement Home. Survived by her daughter, Eileen, son-in-law Roger McWhorter and granddaughter Queenie."

"So that's actually her real name?" Otis asked.

Casey shot him a death glare.

"She takes care of her for 7 years, and after 1 month in the nursing home the old bat drops dead, _that's_ fate," Herrmann said cynically.

"Friday, that's 3 days ago, I wonder how she's taking the news?" Severide asked.

Casey turned to him, "Maybe we should go see."

Kelly looked at him, "You think she's still living there?"

"Wouldn't hurt to find out," Casey said. "She may have _wanted_ her dead, but actually getting it is something different."

Kelly nodded, knowing this was something Casey had more experience in than he did.

"We'll go after shift," he said.

* * *

"You two got some balls coming around here after the damage you did," Roger McWhorter said as he stormed away from the front door, but did nothing to stop the two lieutenants from following him inside.

"What did we do?" Kelly asked.

"I don't know how you bastards did it but I know you're the ones Queenie got that money from," Roger said as he sat down on the couch. "She ran away the day after we put Irene in the home. I came home after my shift ended and she was just _gone_ , no note, no nothing, I ain't seen her since."

"What?" Kelly asked.

Even Casey was surprised. He thought Queenie might hit the ground running once she didn't have to be a caretaker anymore, but he thought there'd be a period of adjustment before it came to that.

"I went to the police, they said because she's over 18 and there was no sign she left against her will, there wasn't anything they could do," Roger said.

"Did you tell them to ping her cell phone to find out where she might be?" Kelly asked.

"She doesn't have a cell phone...she was here all day taking care of her grandmother, who the hell did she need to call? And why the hell did I need another bill?"

"Have you asked her friends if they know where she is?" Casey asked.

"She doesn't _have_ friends," Roger answered. "They all moved away after graduation."

Severide noticed Casey shooting him a knowing look. They both knew that that wasn't entirely true.

* * *

"So tell me something, Casey," Severide said as they drove along in the night, "why is it I'm being accused for playing a role in this when I didn't do anything?"

"Because you're Severide and it saves time," Casey guessed.

"I wasn't there when you took her the money."

"I know you weren't, never said you were."

"I didn't have any part in you getting it either."

"I know, never said you did that either," Casey replied.

"Casey...is there something going on that I should know about?"

"Like what?"

Casey looked over at the man driving, then looked out his window and said, "You're sick."

"Come on, Casey. If there's something going on between you and her..."

"What?" Casey turned to him. "Severide, you're disgusting. I think jumping into bed with every single thing that moves for the last 10 years has warped your mind. She's a kid."

"She's over 18, it's legal," Kelly said. "She's an adult."

"Only physically...I think her mind checked out somewhere when she was 13."

"Casey," Kelly's eyes lit up and said in a sarcastic 'I'm so proud' tone, "You finally found somebody to talk to!"

"Cut it out," Casey warned him.

Severide figured there was more to what was going on than just what he knew about, but he knew if there was, Casey wasn't about to tell him. They drove along in silence for a few miles before Casey said, "Here we are."

"Some people never learn," Kelly said as he pulled his car up to the same dead end part of town where they'd pulled Queenie out of the car. The streets were alive with rowdy teenagers getting ready to start another race. The two lieutenants got out of the car and went up to the crowd and started asking if anybody had seen her. Everybody denied it. The one thing that was certain was she wasn't racing that night, and the word was she hadn't been there for a while. Both men knew they were getting a brush off but they didn't have any way to prove it. After a few minutes everybody scattered for the races to start, Casey looked around and found what he was looking for.

"Severide."

"Huh?"

Casey pointed, Kelly turned and saw a short girl largely hidden in the shadows trying to slink off.

"Recognize her?" Casey asked.

The two nonchalantly followed after her, but after a few seconds the girl realized they were tailing her and took off running. Unfortunately for her, the two men with legs 20 inches longer than hers were able to run a lot faster than she did. Severide reached her first, grabbed her under the armpits and lifted her off her feet. The girl screamed and kicked and struggled and hurled all kinds of obscenities at him as she tried to get loose. Casey walked around Severide to look at her and he told her, "Calm down, we're not cops."

"I know," she sniped, "now put me down!"

"First thing's first, where's Queenie?" Casey asked.

"What makes you think I'd know?" the girl asked.

"Because you two are close. You were the passenger riding with her the night of the crash."

Her eyes widened and her jaw dropped. "How'd you know that?"

"It's the only thing that made sense, whoever called the firehouse knew who exactly to send, her dad's a fireman so she knows how that works, but she didn't have a cell phone, so she told you what to say and you called it in. Otis caught you trying to sneak off with her bag and the money...and I couldn't figure out how you could know to just go down into the ditch, reach in through the window and take the bag, could just _know_ it's not on the floor, and high enough to grab through the open window...you were in the car with her, you were sitting on the bag to see over the dashboard."

"So what?" she asked as Severide put her down.

"You were also the only one who knew her name was Queenie, everybody else here knows her as McQueen," Casey said. "She said your name was Pixie. When was the last time you saw her?"

The short brunette girl folded her arms and huffed a sigh and said, "Two days ago."

"Where?"

She shrugged. "Around."

"And?" Kelly asked.

"And what?"

"You know what was going on with her at home?"

"Oh yeah," Pixie nodded, "she told me about that holy terror."

"That's why you were riding with her that night, because payoffs double with a passenger because of the added risk, and she said she didn't do passengers for the _most_ part, but she did you because she trusted you. And that's why you took the bag and the money afterwards."

"Yeah, to make sure those sorry sons of bitches who scattered after the crash paid what they owed," Pixie said, "the crash wasn't planned but she still won so she was entitled to it and I was to my cut. I said if she let me ride with her for a couple weeks she could get the money she needed in no time to get rid of that bitch."

"Her grandmother died last week."

"I know, she told me. She looked _terrible_ when I saw her."

"What do you mean?" Casey asked.

Pixie shrugged, "She looked like she was hungover, or sick...she said she felt fine the day before when she got the news."

"Maybe celebrating too hard?" Kelly asked.

"She didn't drink...you have to stay sober if you want to get out of these races alive and half the time even that's not enough," Pixie said. "She had a beer that night, the first time I ever saw her drink...must've been the first time she did because she didn't like it."

"Where's she staying?" Casey asked.

"At a hotel nearby," Pixie said. "She gave me the number to call if I needed any help."

"Like what?"

"You've seen the people that come around here," she said firmly, "I think you can figure out. Everybody sees me, they think I'm an easy target. Queenie's the only one who really had my back here. We're not gay, it's just safer to pair up with someone and not get caught out here alone since we _are_ miles from civilization."

"She still racing?" Casey asked.

Pixie shook her head. "There were a couple times but after that she dropped off the face of the earth around here."

"So why do you still come?"

"What else is there to do?" she asked. "Ya gotta do something, right?"

"What's the address of the hotel?" Casey asked.

* * *

"How did you remember all that?" Kelly asked during the drive to the hotel. "It's been a month and I didn't remember any of that."

"Something about that night just never sat right with me," Casey explained. "Too much stuff going on at once and none of it made sense." Matt looked over at the Squad lieutenant and told him, "I saw the paperwork from the nursing home when we were at McWhorter's, Kelly...Queenie only paid enough money to keep her grandma in that place for 2 months."

Kelly looked at him. "That doesn't make sense."

"It _also_ means that when she ran away from home, she still had the better part of $20,000 on her."

"Oh my God," Kelly said as a surge of possibilities started running through his head of just what she'd been doing in the last month.

"How much longer till we're there?" Casey asked.

Kelly buried the accelerator and answered, "Should be arriving any second now."

* * *

The two lieutenants got the room number from the front desk and a pass key and made their way up to the third floor. They reached the door and Casey beat on it a couple times and called out, "Queenie! It's Lt. Casey from 51, open up!"

They waited briefly but there was no response. He tried the pass key, it unlocked but the door wouldn't open.

"What the hell?"

The door only budged an inch or so, Severide tried to look through the gap and find out what was going on.

"My God, she's on the floor!"

The two men put their weight against the door and forced it open which in effect moved Queenie's body back just enough that they could enter the room.

The hotel room was fancy enough, well kept, definitely a place for somebody to go to get away from the everyday life, but there was also now a dried puddle of vomit on the floor just inches from Queenie's body. The teen girl sprawled on the carpet was dressed in blue jeans and a white T-shirt, both of which were indented from the marks of the carpeting, from having been on the floor for an extended period of time.

"Queenie, can you hear me?" Casey asked as he checked her pulse, which was racing at high speed.

Severide pressed a thumb against her eyelid and forced it open.

"Pupils are dilated."

"She's burning up," Casey said as he felt her forehead. He got on his phone and called for an ambo.

Severide put his hand against her chest and felt for a heartbeat, it was racing, he knew from enough years being EMT certified, around double the rate it should've been.

"Did she OD on anything?" Kelly asked.

Casey frantically looked around the room, checked the dressertop, the wastebasket, the bathroom.

"Nothing," he said as he came back. He crouched down on the floor beside Severide and checked her vitals again. "My God, what happened?"


End file.
